The 'Tesla' Of End Point Management: IGEL Is Going Into 'Disrupt Conference' With Record Software/Channel Sales Growth
IGEL, which has fashioned itself into what partners are calling the 'Tesla' of endpoint management software, is going into its Disrupt End User Computing Forum next week coming off a whopping 589 percent increase in software sales in the U.S. in 2017.
IGEL said software sales now account for the majority of US revenue. The software sales increase came during a year in which the company added 115,000 software seats globally.Overall, the company said it ended the year with 74 percent revenue growth in the U.S. and 16 percent growth globally.
While the company delivered 258,000 hardware units globally in 2017, the big gains came from a secure endpoint software transformation powered by the IGEL 64-bit Linux OS with game-changing desktop converter and endpoint management software.
The IGEL software solution is saving companies millions of dollars by outfitting older systems with secure endpoint management solutions, solution providers said..
The worldwide Disrupt conference series celebrates the company's software transformation, providing a forum for industry thought leaders to discuss and demonstrate the latest and greatest secure endpoint management innovation from IGEL and its growing endpoint management ecosystem.
"What we have found with Disrupt is we have tapped a nerve that has people excited about secure endpoint management, intelligent edge computing and Desktop-as-a-Service," said IGEL North America President and CEO Jed Ayres.
Ayres will host the Feb. 6-8 conference, which will be livestreamed from AMD's headquarters in Austin. "This is not just an IGEL event. This is an industry event for secure endpoint management which is disrupting the market," he said.
Ayres has led the software transformation charge for IGEL in the U.S., which has put the company into the thin client fast lane, grabbing share against rivals in a market moving at lightning speed.
Under Ayres' leadership, IGEL has revolutionized the thin-client channel with its IGEL OS and software management console along with its Universal Desktop Converter and UD Pocket product. That has included a big bet on IGEL partners that is paying off in dramatic secure end-point management sales and profits.
Michael Hogan, president of Hogan Consulting Group, a national end point solution provider headquartered in Chesterton, Ind., solution provider, said his IGEL business was up 34 percent in 2017 with every dollar of IGEL sales accounting for another four dollars in additional services and software.
"IGEL is doing to the secure endpoint management market what Tesla has done to the auto market," said Hogan. "IGEL's software has become a big differentiator for us. We don't usually see a product take off like this. Jed grew up in the channel and knows what the pain points are. He gets us and has tapped into how the channel can make devices more secure and reduce management costs for customers. He has given the channel and the endpoint management market a turbo boost. He has shown us how we can make money selling thin clients."
Hogan credits Ayres with transforming IGEL from a legacy thin-client hardware company into a secure endpoint management software innovator. "While competitors were trying to figure out how to become a better thin-client company, IGEL was figuring out how to be a better software company," he says. "Their big play is around software."
Hogan says he is looking forward to even bigger sales growth in 2018. "We were the biggest and fastest growing IGEL partner last year, but we think 2018 is going to be even bigger," he said. "We think IGEL is going to end up taking over the thin-client market. Competitors are offering archaic solutions. IGEL is innovating with software and endpoint management."
The IGEL software with UD Pocket is providing a big payoff for both large enterprises and midmarket companies, with Hogan Consulting providing the secure endpoint managed services. "The world is shifting to this model," he said.
A large regional hospital in the Midwest adopted the IGEL solution for 2,200 seats because of the secure endpoint management software and the savings from not having to upgrade the hardware installed base, said Hogan. "Security is top-of-mind for all our clients," he said. "This is a great story. We see IGEL becoming a bigger and bigger part of our business going forward."
Ayres, for his part, says IGEL has moved from partners viewing the company as a "commodity" thin-client hardware provider to a strategic software partner that powers a subscription-based recurring revenue model for the channel.
IGEL's 64-bit Linux-based IGEL OS is the secret sauce that is propelling the transformation, said Ayres. The IGEL team of 75 engineers in Germany is now releasing fresh firmware updates packed with new features and capabilities for customers.
"It's the Tesla model," said Ayres. "Your IGEL thin client is actually getting better, stronger, faster and smarter because every 12 weeks we are delivering a fresh operating system. That is our claim to fame. We are far out ahead of competitors. We were the first thin-client software provider to put out patches for the Spectre and Meltdown exploits. IGEL is a software company. We are leading the market with the most secure and highly managed endpoint solution."
IGEL is planning to move at an even faster clip into the software market in 2018 with new software licensing models, said Ayres. "Think about the IGEL operating system being managed and maintained as a pool of licenses that can be moved across a spectrum of devices whether that is across our hardware or someone else's hardware," he said. "Customers are going to be able to move that software around in the future as long as they are paying an annual fee to keep that OS current."
Ayres said one of the keys to the IGEL's software transformation was opening a new office in the heart of San Francisco's SOMA (South of Market) technology district. "That has given us relevance and prominence in the software capital of the world – San Francisco and Silicon Valley," he said. "We are moving faster in secure endpoint software than anyone else in the market."